Author : Col. Ajay Kumar (retd)
We are living in a strange India, where our corporates act as if they’re reporting to some high council in the Middle East, New York, or Beijing. The recent Lenskart controversy is not about glasses, but it’s about who we are. The eyewear giant Lenskart is at the centre of a social media firestorm for reasons of its own creation. A leaked internal document titled the Lenskart Staff Uniform and Grooming Guide,” version v1.1/11, dated February 2, 2026., became the spark. It was an intentional, direct attack on the Sanatan way of life.
The Woke Rot Inside Lenskart Showrooms
The leaked document, a blatantly discriminatory manual of 23 pages of pure, unadulterated religious asymmetry that explicitly stated that the bindi is “not allowed” for female staff. Strange! In a country where the bindi is the most visible symbol of a Hindu woman’s identity, a “homegrown” brand deemed it a violation of its style. Religious tilaks too were banned. Kalava threads must be removed.
But then comes the “inclusive” part. The same guide permitted hijabs and turbans, provided they were black.
This isn’t neutrality but a targeted attack. If a black hijab is “professional,” why is a bindi “unprofessional”? Why is a sacred thread a “safety hazard” in a retail store selling frames, but a headscarf is perfectly fine?
CEO Peyush Bansal tried the “outdated” card. In a post on X, he also called the document “inaccurate” until the Community Notes feature, the only thing keeping these elites honest these days, flagged the February 2026 date immediately. Then came the “language lapse.” He said the company found the “problematic line” in February and fixed it. If they fixed it in February, why was it still being audited and enforced on the ground? Employees have come forward saying they lost performance points and salary incentives for wearing a kalava. One store manager in Pune even says staff were penalised during store inspections.
Arab and Chinese Money Pulling the Strings of WOKE Business
Why is an Indian businessman like Bansal so willing to alienate his own majority customer base? It feels like a betrayal when a brand that grew up in our backyards starts acting like a stranger to its own culture. It’s hard not to feel that Lenskart has traded its Indian soul for a seat at the global table.
When billions pour in from Abu Dhabi, Japan, and China, the Indian traditions like the bindi or tilak are often viewed as “clutter” to be polished away in favour of a Western, corporate aesthetic. It’s a double standard that treats our identity as an obstacle to a “clean” global image. It feels like a lack of heart at the top. When the leadership’s own history shows a disregard for traditional values, the company’s “no-Tilak” policies stop looking like professional standards and start looking like a rejection of who we are.
The troubling thing is that, in the case of Lenskart, rot starts at the top. Bansal’s wife, Nidhi Mittal Bansal, had her old social media posts dug up, where she had been mocking Hindu organisations and traditional leaders. It is no surprise that the company’s “Academy” produces manuals that ban tilaks. Her account went dark the moment the heat turned up. Vanished digital footprint. That’s the classic woke strategy: hide when you’re caught, then wait for the storm to pass.
It leaves us wondering: In the race to become a global giant, did Lenskart decide that the people who made it successful were no longer worth representing?
From TCS to FabIndia, the Systematic War on Dharma
Lenskart isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a pattern and a familiar plot: test the waters, see how much the “tolerant” Hindu will take, and then apologise only when the boycott hits the bottom line.
Recently, we had the TCS controversy in Nashik. Employees alleged a “coordinated pattern” where supervisors were using their power to pressure junior staff into religious conversion. There are reports about sexual harassment, intimidation, and an “organised gang” targeting female colleagues. Nine FIRs were registered. The SIT found thousands of suspicious emails and chats. It was so serious that the NIA and ATS had to be called in to check for extremist links and foreign funding. That’s the logical end of “inclusive” HR departments that look the other way when one community is being targeted.
Tech Mahindra’s “Footwear-Free Zone” notice during Ramzan also went viral. The company denied it, saying the image didn’t belong to them, but anonymous employee reports told a different story, one of biased hiring and a “Mini Pakistan-like” atmosphere in some offices.
And then we had the advertising disasters!
FabIndia’s “Jashn-e-Riwaaz” tried to “Abrahamise” Diwali. Tanishq’s “Ekatvam” ad glorifies interfaith marriage while ignoring the brutal reality of what often happens to Hindu women in those situations. We had an old Pongal ad by Mr Bansal showing a model without a Bindi and in strange, unrelated attire. Now, Air India has landed in a similar controversy over alleged grooming rules for cabin crew. The controversy began after users shared excerpts from what they claimed was Air India’s cabin crew handbook. The images suggested that items like choora, mangalsutra, teeka, and sindoor were not allowed for employees.
These aren’t mistakes. They are deliberate attempts to “de-Hinduise” our festivals. They want our money during Diwali, but they don’t want our symbols in the ads or on the foreheads of their staff.
ESG and the WOKE Colonisation of the Indian Office
Corporate India is obsessed with ESG(Environmental, Social, and Governance). It sounds noble. We all want a better planet. But in reality, it’s a tool for cultural colonisation. Global investment firms like BlackRock and Vanguard use these scores to decide where to allocate capital. To get a high “Social” score, an Indian company has to prove it’s “diverse” and “inclusive” by Western standards that are drafted in New York or London. They have zero understanding of Bharat. To them, a Hindu employee wearing a tilak is “displaying religious bias.” But a Muslim employee in a hijab is “representing diversity.” Indian CEOs, desperate for that FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) money, play along. They hire “woke” HR consultants who have more loyalty to their social media circles than to the culture of the people they employ.
This “soft totalitarianism” forces people to choose between their faith and their paycheck. If you’re a girl from a traditional family working at Lenskart and you’re told to take off your bindi to keep your job, that’s not a “style guide.” It’s a violation of Article 25 of our Constitution. It’s a breach of the fundamental right to practice your religion. But the corporate world doesn’t care about the Constitution. They care about their “Social” score and their next funding round from Abu Dhabi.
Reclaiming Our Identity
Lenskart eventually buckled. They released a new “In-Store Style Guide” that “explicitly and unambiguously” welcomes bindis, tilaks, sindoor, and kalavas. They apologised. They said they were “deeply sorry” IF anyone felt their faith was unwelcome. A conditional apology!
It’s hard to trust a change of heart that only happens when the bank account is at risk. For many, Lenskart’s sudden “listening” feels less like genuine respect and more like a calculated move to save their IPO from the power of the #NoBindiNoBusiness movement.
The concern here is deeply human: What is happening behind closed doors? We shouldn’t have to wonder whether foreign funding comes with “hidden clauses” that require us to erase our identity. This isn’t just about a manual, but about the people in the cubicles and training rooms who are being taught that their heritage is “unprofessional.”
When a CEO treats a bindi as a “style choice” to be managed rather than a boundary to be respected, it reveals a profound arrogance. We aren’t just “consumers” to be re-engineered; we are a community that deserves to be seen. If a brand won’t stand by our values, they don’t deserve to stand in our markets. The message is simple:
“No respect, no business, Mr and Mrs Bansal !!!”
Diversity isn’t about looking like a stock photo from a US tech firm. It’s about the bindi, the tilak, and the turban co-existing without any of them being labelled “unprofessional.” Lenskart tried to sell us a vision of a “modern” India that didn’t include us. We showed them that Sanatan isn’t just the past—it’s the market. And the market has spoken.
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